Auburn alumni form The Brook and The Bluff

For the members of The Brook & The Bluff, playing in a full-time band has been a life-long dream and passion.

“I’d say definitely for all us, we’ve all been playing music from a pretty young age,” drummer and vocalist John Canada said. “I’ve been playing drums since I was in 7th grade, so not since I was like a toddler, but since that time period, I kind of knew that music was something that I would be taking really seriously.”

The band started in Birmingham when lead vocalist Joseph Settine and lead guitarist Alec Bolton formed an acoustic duo at the end of their senior year at Auburn.

The band’s name is based on Settine and Bolton’s hometowns — Bluff Park, Alabama, and Mountain Brook, Alabama. respectively.

Settine and Bolton were already familiar with making music together as they were both members of a band during their freshman year known as the Freewheelers. After the Freewheelers broke up, Settine and Bolton began to create acoustic music together.

It was spring 2016 when Canada joined the band.

“I saw them playing at a bar one time, Moe’s BBQ actually on the strip and I just thought they were super awesome,” Canada said. “Offered to play drums and sing with them as well, and shortly after that, we played a couple of gigs in the Auburn area.”

The band’s first single “Masks” was released in September 2016, and the band has seen much success since then charting on Spotify’s US and Canada Viral 50 Playlists and selling out concerts in Atlanta, Nashville and Birmingham.

“The hardest part is the uncertainty,” Canada said. “It’s a hard part of it but also an exciting part. It’s not every day we’re doing the same thing, and we know that we’re going to have stable income, you don’t know that, and you have to work at it each day to kind of create that success for yourself.”

The band is currently on tour and has been playing at locations across the Southeast. On April 20, they will be playing at the Red Clay Brewery in Opelika.

“I would say, collectively, one of our favorite places to play is Charleston, South Carolina, and Ashville, North Carolina, are just two really awesome spots, and we love going to those towns,” Canada said. “Austin, Texas is the live music capital of the world, the energy there is great.”

Three of the band’s four members graduated from Auburn in spring 2015.

Canada received a bachelor’s in accounting and then received a masters in accounting the following year. Settine majored in music education with an emphasis on voice, and Bolton graduated with a degree in business management.

“Playing in a band is like owning a small business,” Canada said. “You have to create something good, but you also have to make it valuable.”